To read previous posts, click TheRickieReport.com and scroll down.
Fran Goodman’s “NOT YOUR ORDINARY PAINTING CLASS” Blends Art History With Abstract Expressionism. Meet Fran At Jerrys Artarama On February 1 For A Demo & Sign Up For Classes In Boca Raton Now!
Fran Goodman is a powerhouse! Her paintings burst with energy and color – and her enthusiasm for teaching her students erupts! Fran’s artworks are in private collections both nationally and internationally. She teaches “Not Your Ordinary Painting Class” where she blends art history with contemporary applications in Abstract Expressionism in various locations in Palm Beach County. Her unique aesthetic approach, coupled with her workshops, seminars, support groups, and widespread media exposure, earned her national and international recognition. Read more about the twists in her life and how she got to this moment. The Rickie Report shares the details about her February 1st Demo at Jerrys Artarama in Deerfield Beach, as well as her classes in Boca Raton. Fran is available for group as well as private classes and she welcomes commissions.
F R A N G O O D M A N
FREE WORKSHOP:
“How To Give Dynamic Demos!”
Saturday, February 1
2 PM
Jerrys Artarama in Deerfield Beach
Hillsboro Square
242 Federal Highway Deerfield Beach, FL 33441
Calling all artists who work in all genres! If you have been itching to share your talent and skills with the world, but don’t know how to put a dynamic demo together, THIS IS THE WORKSHOP for you! Fran Goodman will show you everything you need to know, from A – Z, including unique ways to involve your audience and give them a great takeaway! Curiosity seekers welcome!
Fran Goodman with Student, at Art Exhibit
CLASSES:
BEGINNER ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST ART CLASSES ~ “NOT YOUR ORDINARY PAINTING CLASS”
Wednesdays, 1:30 – 4 pm
Four Week Class
211201-A2 February 5-26
211201-A3 March 4-25
201201-A4 April 1-22
Saturdays, 10:00 am-12:30 pm
Four Week Class
211202-A2 February 8-29
211202-A3 March 7-28
211202-A4 April 4-25
$150.00 Boca Raton Residents $187.50 Non-Residents
Boca Raton Community Center
150 Crawford Blvd. Boca Raton 33432
561-393-7807
Call and receive your ID and password and then register online.
Join our
“NOT YOUR ORDINARY PAINTING CLASS”
Discover the artist in you while having a ball doing it! Experiment with techniques used by famous Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollack. Learn about their lives and the lessons they can teach you. Explore elements of color and design, experiment with layering techniques, like water dripping, acrylic skins applications, and so much more. No prior drawing or painting experience necessary. Instructor: Fran Goodman.
Have the most ARTISTIC time of your life at “NOT YOUR ORDINARY PAINTING CLASS”: Blending Art History with Abstract Expressionism, Explore the lives of famous Abstract Expressionists, Learn paper towel techniques, Water dripping, Acrylic Skin applications and So Much More!
No Prior Drawing Or Painting Experience Necessary (Demonstrations and individual guidance is given at each class )
“Reds” by Fran Goodman
When asked why she teaches, Fran tells The Rickie Report, “Although I enjoy composing weekly curriculums and delivering the contents, it is not the reason I love to teach. I love to teach because of what my students give back to me…their faith and trust in me. Their approving nods while I’m in the process of explaining something, their warm smiles when they get it, their great eagerness to absorb what I suggest to them during their process, their pride and joy in their finished painting. I saw all this yesterday when I taught my first class at the Boca Raton Community Center. Often outside of class, some students will text me an image of a painting they have started on their own to ask for my opinion, or they will contact me to tell me about a gallery show or event I may be interested in. My students never give me a hard time, challenge me, or put me on the defensive, instead, they allow me to mold our experience into one that will be memorable for both of us”.
FRAN’S STORY:
I was born into a family of models and physically beautiful people who put beauty on a pedestal. I was a pretty little girl with an idyllic childhood. I loved to draw and do paint by number canvases but my greatest joy was to design elaborate clothing for my paper dolls and dream about becoming a famous fashion designer who would live in Paris like my heroine Madeline from the Madeline book series. Then at puberty my life turned into a nightmare with the sudden arrested growth of my jawbone. My family shunned me and my classmates persecuted what was now my chinless face. Feeling like I had no worth as a person, I fell into a deep depression. To sooth myself I turned to my art and would draw huge cartoon characters to keep me company. Another thing I would do is pile reams of construction paper monochromatically in my closet and sit in there for hours being soothed by their color.
When I was fifteen, I underwent two failed operations to reconstruct my jaw (in one, I nearly died from complications). Through it all, I held onto my childhood dream of becoming a famous dress designer. I still had the dream when I graduated high school and learned I had been accepted to Chouinard Art Institute, the same school that Edith Head, Hollywood costume designer of the ‘40s, and Bob Mackie, designer for Cher and Carol Burnett had attended. Chouinard was a very progressive school with very progressive ideas. First day of orientation we eighteen-year old students were told, “If you’re here to learn anything, there’s the door.” In my second semester I took a painting course as an elective. We didn’t have to physically paint in a classroom, only show up on the day of the critique at the end of the eight-week course.
Award winning “Garden of Happiness” by Fran Goodman
On that day my fellow classmates and I set our paintings on easels in a long row. I looked at the other ones in disbelief. Every one of them was covered with “displaced” lines and color, what I thought amounted to scribble scrabble a child could do, while I had slaved to make my painting resemble real objects. That day was my introduction to abstract expressionism as I soon discovered, when my professor, Robert Chuey, went from one student to another extolling their ability to elicit feelings and emotions in their paintings, which I thought was a real cop out. Instantly, I hated abstract expressionism and wanted nothing to do with it.
That day was also a red-letter day, as I learned from my professor, I was wasting my time in fashion, that I was born to paint. I switched majors and painted up a storm while my fellow classmates dubbed me Post Renaissance Girl. When I was in grammar school, my greatest joy was to build dimension into the visual aids that accompanied my school reports, sometimes so intricate and mammoth in size, my father would help carry them into class. At Chouinard, I chose various organic and non-organic materials to build this dimension, including spackling wall paste. As a student, I was able to get my paintings, which were quite large into furniture show rooms and galleries in the LA area; also, in a NJ gallery that my mother had found, but all at the price of taking my name off the canvas. It seemed society wasn’t happy that one showed up as a young female painter in the ‘60s. After three years of this, my father saw only a starving artist in my future and made me quit my education at Chouinard.
I then left the fine art world to carve out what would be a thirty-year career as spokesperson for the rights of women and their faces. I designed and disseminated seminars and support groups – concerned more with how women felt about their faces than how they actually looked — in the US and Canada and drew the National and Canadian media. Over the years I was featured on talk shows, radio, and women’s magazines and in newspaper articles including in The New York Times. During my career, I didn’t paint. Instead, I wrote a memoir and two screenplays about my life. In 2013, a bout with Lyme disease left me with arthritic fingers and the inability to continue to write. I became depressed, then thought to try painting again. I found that the palette knife over a paintbrush was easier to hold and I also found that abstract expressionism was a better fit for my hands. Still with a passion to build dimension and structure into my paintings, I used pastes, sands and acrylic skins, and my favorite, paper towels. In 2014, I was accepted into Larry Poons’ master class at the Art Students League in NY. Under his tutelage, my paintings were exhibited in group shows in galleries in the Chelsea district of Manhattan.
In the same year, I designed an 8-week curriculum where I could teach my craft to beginning painters at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ. The program director, finding the class “educational, inspiration and a load of fun”, took it four times! I moved to Florida in February 2016 and joined the art world in Palm Beach County. Through the auspices of the various guilds that I joined, I was able to show my work in galleries in Southern Florida. I also designed a classroom curriculum for beginning students who wanted to learn abstract expressionism. While I was painting in Larry Poon’s class, I studied the master expressionists from the ‘40’s and ‘50s and found that they were the real teachers. When I put my class together, I decided to apply what I learned so students would have an opportunity to “know” these masters as well, not only through their bio, but through experiencing their style of painting. I called my class, “Not Your Ordinary Painting Class – blending art history with abstract expressionism.
“During my life I have created projects, seminars, support groups and trainings in the United States and Canada to inspire growth and self-esteem. Whether it was through my business as spokeswoman for women’s beauty rights, or through Toastmasters as a mentor to many, or as an art educator; whether I was addressing men, women or teens of all ages and all walks of life, I looked for their potential and then empowered them to be their best selves. To me, there is no greater reward than witnessing people flower and bloom.” Fran’s Artist statement tells us, “I approach the canvas with a desire to fuse color with texture, free of intention, tradition and norms. I count on layering properties to burn a life force into even the smallest structures. My strokes, some obscure, some undefined, personify difference and sameness and how the two natures work in concert with one another.”
“Satin Nights” by Fran Goodman
HOW I TEACH “NOT YOUR ORDINARY PAINTING CLASS”
My students are usually adults who have never painted in abstract expressionism before. They don’t necessarily have any prior drawing or painting experience either. On the first day of class, I explain to them that they are not here to “make apples to take bites out of.” In fact, there is nothing they must or should do! There are no goals, no mistakes! We paint from our hearts, not from our brains. I also stress what I learned from Larry Poons: “One stroke leads to the next stroke and so on.” Usually for the first twenty minutes of every class the students sit together while I show a PowerPoint presentation and/or from my I-pad, the painting (style) of a particular abstract expressionist from the ‘40s and ‘50s. I talk about the artist’s life and philosophy and with the use of handouts, we discuss everything in preparation for them to begin their painting.
Some students start the first class skeptical about their ability and are nervous to put a single mark on a canvas (that needs to be 16” x 20”.) Then, in subsequent classes, I notice not only does their self-confidence and quality of work grow, but their desire to paint on larger canvases as well. By the end of the 4 weeks, some of the students are painting on canvases as large as 30” x 40”. Within the context of each class are the primary lessons of color and design related to the artist. For example, after exploring the paintings of Franz Klein who primarily worked in black, white and shades of gray, the students would then work up a palette where they develop color values by adding black and white to various hues before applying the paint to their canvas.
At the start of the second half of the class, students are introduced to a certain medium related to the artist. In the case of Franz Kline, because his strokes were energetic, raw, action-oriented, they might try gel gloss, as its “slide” mimics that of quick, action strokes. For the most part the students use palette knives. One thing important to me is that the students learn layering techniques and other applications that add dimension to their paintings. Some things they’ve used: tissue paper, sand, masking tape, pastes, gels, paper towels, acrylic skins and even rose petals. I may do a quick demo on a certain technique, but I don’t like to elaborate with demos, because I don’t want them to be influenced by my application. A single painting is completed in every 2 1/2 hour class. I encourage students to develop their canvas, meaning not to consider the first layer as finished. To illustrate, I show slides of how my paintings developed.
Another thing I’m sensitive to and stress, is what I learned when I was writing a memoir years ago: the concept of “kill your darlings,” meaning, even if you love what you are writing, if it doesn’t move the story along, it needs to go. The same I find applies to painting in abstract expressionism. During every class, I make repeated trips to each student’s canvas to check on their progress. I look for concepts (that I have taught them) — balance, values, focal point and other design elements. I give my opinions, but always allow the students the last word. Halfway into every class, “we do the “official 4-way turn. Here, the students have the opportunity to voice their opinion as to whether each other’s paintings would “look better” going forward in another direction. And again, the artist of the painting has the final word. I encourage group dynamics. I find the chemistry that gets produced not only allows for an active, fun class, but that the students learn from one another as well.
Untitled Painting by Fran Goodman’s student, Carolyn Thews
TESTIMONIES AND COMMENTS
At the end of each 4-weeks, Fran hands out an evaluation sheet. This is also important, as she wants to know what the students liked and disliked and what she can improve on. She also asks for comments.
Here are a few from several students:
- “I am so happy to have met and attended Fran’s art classes. She has touched my soul with her gentle presence, her love of art, and intelligent observations. She has brought out a new and exciting awareness of color, lines, movement and values; unknown to me before.”
- “Fran brings out the hidden artist in all of us with demonstrations by famous artists, color, theory, observations and discussion with music and laughter.”
- “Thank you, Fran for stirring and waking up my sleeping artistic soul.”
- “Thanks for blowing the lids off our minds by teaching your method! Think I was at a crossroads with painting the former way.
- “I can’t begin to tell you how much of an impact you have made on my life I came to your class expecting nothing more than a pleasant version and an outlet for my grief with your help I have discovered something I love I have so much to learn but even though the process is sometimes painful for me I am glad to have your guidance to help me along in this journey you are a wonderful teacher and a special human being I am so glad I found you.”
I have received all sorts of other accolades, small gifts, even “certificate of excellence” (straight of the internet, the kind you’d give to a child” but very precious to me. However, the greatest gift/compliment comes when my students tell me they want to sign up for more classes. Some of my advanced students have taken over 10- 4- week classes. In all, I say I truly love my students, I love them for their enthusiasm, love them for their talent, love them for who they are as people and artists. Last July I arranged to showcase 67 paintings by 19 students at the Center for Spiritual Living in Boca Raton .The reporter from the Sun-Sentinel came and was so taken by the quality of the work from folks who never tried abstract expressionism before — some had never even touched paint — that his article made two cover stories on August 7th, in the Boca Times and the West Boca Times. (more on my website under media)
MANY PASSIONS:
Another art-related passion is my role as Art Education Fund Chairwoman for the Delray Art League. I have held this position for four years and it has allowed me to meet and connect with the directors and administrators of very special organizations in Palm Beach County. Every year, I organize an award ceremony event where I have the privilege of doling out 10% of the Leagues profits to these organizations — a ritual the League has been engaged in since 1965, to assist in their visual arts programs. This December, the League expanded its generosity when the members chose to play Secret Santa to the Palm Beach Habilitation Center. Over 70 gifts, all holiday wrapped, were delivered to the squeals and glee of adults with special needs at their holiday party. The manager at Jerry’s Artarama in Deerfield Beach allowed me to design a Christmas bin and shoppers were encouraged to donate art supplies, Also the members of the League brought gifts to a meetup held at the Heart of Delray Gallery in Delray Beach, where the league taken space to exhibit. Still another passion involves delivering talks on abstract expressionism, especially reciting wild tales about the masters from the ‘40’s and ‘50s, that I’ve gleaned through the years. Usually at the end of a talk I invite the participants to do a Community Canvas project where everyone gets to put a stroke (s) on one large canvas. Additionally, I give demos on both how to work with various mediums and also how to give Dynamic Demos.
PRESS:
Fran’s paintings are featured in Art Guide Magazine Volume 3, distributed to galleries in the US, where she was awarded a quarter page ad to showcase one of the three. Her artworks have been part of numerous juried exhibitions. She earned the title, “Distinguished Toastmaster” from Toastmasters, a prestigious accomplishment. Fran also works as an alcoholism counsellor and with other 12 step programs.
Fran is a Signature Artist of the Boca Raton Museum of Art, a member of the Art Students League in NY, the Palm Beach Watercolor Society, Art Serve, and, the Delray Art League, where she is the Arts Education Fund Chair.
She teaches “Not Your Ordinary Painting Class” where she blends art history with contemporary applications in Abstract Expressionism in various locations in Palm Beach County. Recently her classes were featured in two cover stories which can be found on her website.
New York Times Article https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/07/nyregion/in-person-beauty-lessons.html
Morristown Article https://morristowngreen.com/2015/05/04/trauma-as-a-gift-a-lesson- learned-at-the-morristown-art-walk/
Sun-Sentinel: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/community/boca-times/fl-cn-boca-raton-not- ordinary-painting-20190807-20190802-hejvohw5wrcoviiwjb3sgf7vsa-story.html
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/community/delray-sun/fl-cn-delray-art-league- christmas-surprise-01082020-20200108-jfz5hvbgcfgunav5vgt6v3yr34-story.html
For more information:
Fran invites opportunities to do commissions, lectures, demos and private lessons.f you are interested in taking one, you can register on my website at franmanngoodman.com.
There you will find the dates and times as well.
Facebook page: Fran Mann Goodman’s Paintbox
Meetup.com: Not Your Ordinary Painting Class
Email: franspaintbox@yahoo.com
For coverage of your events, to place an advertisement, or speak to Rickie about appearing in The Rickie Report, contact:
Rickie Leiter, Publisher
Rickie@therickiereport.com 561-537-0291
17019 SW Sapri Way Port St. Lucie, FL 34986
To read previous posts, click TheRickieReport.com and scroll down.
